


Idle Threats

by Transistance



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Canon Compliant, Death, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 20:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7068616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transistance/pseuds/Transistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a particularly long and stressful day for them both, Sebastian and William engage in some light-hearted verbal discourse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idle Threats

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this a while ago and then came back to it and found I've forgotten how to write proper past tense, ahhh
> 
> Also it's not lighthearted, I'm a Sinful Liar and this sort of flippantry will land me in trouble eventully.

It had been a long day. Although not exactly tiring it certainly had been needlessly tiresome – but he wouldn't admit that. After all, if he couldn't deal with housing three useless shinigami, following through a string of numerous unrelated murder cases, trail one madman from one end of London to the other, emotionally destroy and then murder said madman before having to put up with his arrogant brat of a master's endless whinging and pseudo-deep revelations for half the night before the child finally managed to shut up and go to sleep, what kind of a butler would he be?

 _Hell_ but he was sick of using that phrase. The English language did not have enough pun opportunities relating to his home or his kind and having to stick with one mindless catchphrase was, although not quite sapping his morale, certainly very boring. Would it be worth it in the end? Yes. Ciel's soul promised what the sum of many past conquests had failed to give. And he didn't quite hate Ciel. The child was interesting, certainly, and amusing so long as the situation allowed Sebastian to laugh.

Tonight did not offer one of those situations. Tonight had been an exercise in manipulation and willpower, and although he wasn't exactly _surprised_ with himself, he was guardedly pleased. It had been easy to ignore the soiled souls that had streamed from Slingby's body, even in such quantity and proximity, and he hadn't had to so much as lift a finger to end all hope of his opposition besting him – the reapers had destroyed themselves. Fitting and satisfying, truly. Now all he had to do was get rid of the remaining evidence.

It was not difficult, per se: he'd abandoned the bodies for their own people to deal with (because there never had been anything odd about stumbling into a corpse or two on London's streets) but taken their weapons, both out of prudency – if a third party entity got hold of them, the situation could become very dangerous whether it directly affected his household or not – and his own curiosity. He'd half expected them to fade away on the wind when their owners were slain, but they remained all too solid in his hands. They certainly couldn't be kept in the house – if one of the staff found them they no doubt could and would use them to do something remarkably stupid, engineer a new accident unique in its own way – but equally had to be squirrelled away somewhere secure. Somewhere like the back room of that old abandoned warehouse that he had kept guarded and hidden for objects and occasions just like this. There'd been a few.

The night was squalling and bitter, pissing rain, which he supposed by anyone's definition of karma he deserved to be caught out in. It didn't do to warp the entire distance (that was a wonderful way to literally leap headfirst into a trap) so he had let a ten minute walk remain, having naïvely not expected the weather to worsen (but then, when didn't it? Of all the countries he'd served in, Britain remained secure in the position of most _miserable_ ).

Had he been a younger demon, or even merely less experienced, this grouchy reflection might have dimmed his awareness of the surroundings – but as he was neither and perhaps due to the fact that he was reminiscing on the shinigami anyway, Sebastian picked up the scent of death long before he was within range of, say, a pruning spear to the head or any other such ambush. He stopped, glanced upward; picked out the figure perched atop the nearest roof. Not Grell Sutcliff, thank anything that listened, but someone with short hair and more self-certainty than Sebastian wanted from a potential foe – upon realizing that he'd been seen, the reaper took a jump that should by all laws of nature kill him, landing fairly gracefully in Sebastian's way.

“...Good evening.”

“Is it?” Spears raised his eyebrows slightly before adjusting his glasses, apparently appalled by the geniality of the greeting. “I suppose we've different tolerances in that regard.” The rain must have bothered him, flecking his glasses with blind spots as it was. If he had come to take an offensive in retaliation for the day's work he couldn't have picked a worse time. Not that Sebastian _wanted_ to kill another reaper; eventually that would bring trouble. Trouble that wasn't as inept as every one of them that he'd run into thus far.

“I do hope you haven't been sent to accost me. It would vex my young master greatly, I'm sure, if I had to dispatch a third shinigami in as many hours.” This was an outright lie. It was highly doubtful that Ciel would care, even if he did ever find out about it. But the reply confirmed otherwise, anyway.

“Nothing of the sort.” Sebastian didn't have to imagine that Spears was gritting his teeth – he could see how much effort the man was putting into restraining himself. “I have been sent to offer you a formal _thanks_ for preventing the... seceder from unlawful acquisition of further souls. And not consuming them yourself. That was practically noble, for a demon.”

“Oh, no, no need to thank me.” This was wonderful. Spears was being forced, so obviously unwillingly, to congratulate him for murder. “The souls were worthless, as I'm sure you found, and I should be the one thanking you, really. It's rare that I'm given the opportunity for such _sport_.”

He smiled, charmingly, and Spears touched his glasses again. He seemed about to reply but then visibly thought better of it, swallowing what would no doubt have been regrettably tactless words before his eyes alighted on the scythes. He nodded at them. “I'll take those, thank you.”

“Of course. I would have returned them directly, but I had no way of...” Too late Sebastian realised the mistake, and Spears gave him a very tight-lipped smile.

“My card,” he said, offering a familiar rectangle. “Should you require assistance in, say, dealing with rogue agents in the proper way, I'm sure you'll find it very useful.”

Sebastian tipped his head and pretended to consider the offer as he handed over the scythes and took the card – Spears was _so_ careful not to put his hands anywhere near Sebastian's; it was almost funny – but then shrugged, although he was careful to ensure that the card was seen to be pocketed this time. He would bin it later. “Actually, I think adding more of you to today's mishap would have only resulted in more deaths.”

“Yours, perhaps.” Okay, he'd walked into that one. More interestingly Spears had just moved the scythes to wherever they were stored, and either due to how close he was or because Spears was worse at hiding things than any other reaper that Sebastian had encountered, he could still feel their presence. Had he wanted to, he knew that he could have ripped them right back out of that pocket dimension so long as Spears were incapacitated. Useful knowledge useless in the current context – he'd no desire to change fighting style this late in the game. The idea of using _gardening tools_ as a weapon was as ludicrous now as it had been when he'd first realised the trend.

“I'm sure that next time you'll manage to keep your agents under control,” Sebastian said. “I'm sure that the fact that you've had two deserters fall on my doorstep recently has merely been a... blip. After all, the idea that those who regulate life and death can be so careless is... well, worrying for most other than myself.”

“It won't happen again,” Spears snapped, but managed to collect himself as quickly as he'd broken. “Sutcliff and Slingby both were outliers. For the most part we have no such embarrassments.”

“Worrying,” Sebastian repeated, turning gently to glance back the way he'd came. “Worrying, too, that you've enough free time to harass me. Surely there is an _odious_ mass of filing lurking in wait for you in the event of incidents such as this?”

The reaper's eyes narrowed to the point that they were almost closed. “I don't know what you think you know about it. But you're right – I shouldn't waste my time conversing with slime like you. Run along back to your master; you've done enough damage tonight.” He turned sharply on his heel, and then stopped. “Oh, and – Demon? If you so much as touch one of my subordinates again-”

Sebastian cut him off, unable to resist. “You'll what? Set Grell Sutcliff loose on me? Forgive me if I do not quake in fear.”

“Sutcliff? No, much though I imagine he would enjoy the opportunity. No, _Mr_ Michaelis, if you harm one of mine again I will kill you myself.”

“Threat duly noted.” Sebastian shrugged, and then dipped his head in a faux-submissive nod. “Although of course I can offer no real assurances. I go where I am willed; should my master decree that one of yours die, they die. I can no more prevent that than you can stop the rain from soiling their graves.”

The rise he'd shot for didn't come. Indeed Spears nodded, as though this statement in some way absolved him of a large portion of the blame, and then said simply, “Goodnight.”

The reaper stepped forward, vanishing abruptly into the night as his kind seemed wont to do, leaving Sebastian standing alone. “...Is it?” he mused aloud, consciously mirroring the other – and then felt, if not stupid, at least a little used. _Can't have many subordinates left now, really_ , he thought, and then mentally kicked himself for not having said it.

Sebastian did not sigh, but glared vaguely into the rain – confirming that there was nobody in the immediate vicinity to see him – before warping back to the manor house, returning to where his priorities lay.


End file.
